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The real estate industry shares a lot with real estate agents about safety, but what about seller safety? There certainly isn’t enough advice out there, and the industry as a whole should probably take a step in the right direction and share some safety tips with customers.
As a real estate agent, taking a little time to talk to your sellers about safety can not only help ensure nothing bad happens, but it can also improve the reputation of the industry as a whole.
Talk to a seller about your valuables
Open houses and showings are common for sellers, but you want to be sure to remind them that even if you’re there, you can’t see every potential buyer all the time. You need to remind your vendors that it’s in their best interest to store any valuables, and you can do your part by checking IDs and asking visitors to log in.
Eliminate any medication
Many vendors will remember to put away their iPads or lock up their jewelry before an open house or exhibit, but what about your medications? There’s nothing stopping someone from opening a medicine cabinet and pulling out prescription drugs.
You probably don’t want to risk confronting a potential buyer who may have taken something, so it’s best to tell your vendors to bring their medications with them during a show or open house.
Put away the knife blocks
One thing that can help keep you safer during an open house or exhibit is to ask your vendors to put knife blocks away. Most of the time there are amazing pictures of the inside of a house, so someone wanting to rob the place can really keep an eye on where things are if they come to show them off.
A real estate agent may be no match for a thief who wants to take the seller’s new 4K TV, and it could be even worse if the thief can grab a knife.
Delete photos of children
Many sellers still live in the house, which means they may still have family photos. If there are pictures of children, it’s in everyone’s best interest to ask the seller to remove them. You never know who might see them and could be putting the seller’s children in danger.
Advise vendors not to offer tours on their own
If your seller’s home is listed, it means they are essentially giving people an open invitation to view their home. Some burglars take advantage of this and show up at the house, knock on the door and tell a story about how they’re looking for a new home, they just love the place and wonder if they could take a quick peek inside.
This, of course, could be a disaster. Advise your vendors that if this happens, they should refuse to let anyone in and tell the person to call you. However, it’s probably just something innocent that the person is genuinely interested in around the house. you never know
Make sure they know about Craigslist scams
With so many scams, you should talk to your sellers about Craigslist or other scams that may affect sellers or people interested in renting your property.
Check each lock after an open house or by showing
You’ll also want to talk to your vendors to make sure they check every lock after a show or open house. This includes window locks. Sometimes people enter the house, open a window or door without anyone knowing, and then come back later to break in.
Protect sellers
One of the first things you can do to protect your sellers, and yourself, is to talk to each seller about who they are allowing into their homes.
Don’t let random, unverified people in, and if there’s a situation like an open house or exhibit, make sure you see the person’s ID. If they don’t want to show ID, they don’t have to show the house.
You should also try to make this a personal practice when dealing with salespeople. Another suggestion is to talk to your broker or share this information with others in your industry. If you’re feeling more ambitious, work with others to create a Broker Safety Policy.
Recognize that all safety is personal
There is a lot of security awareness training that teaches what is above. But the most Safety training for real estate agents misses is how to change agent behavior so that they actually want to take action and make changes to the way they do business to keep themselves and their customers safe.
If officers ask themselves, “What would I really do if I were confronted?” and thinking what response, if any, they would have, they would begin to understand how unprepared they and, by default, their customers are.
Safety begins with yourself. All agents must consider their individual concerns and concerns regarding their personal safety. From there, they will begin to recognize risk in a much more holistic way, naturally evolving towards better personal and client protection.
The author Robert Siciliano is CEO of credit fatherhead of training and security awareness expert in protect now#1 Amazon Bestselling Author, Media Personality and Architect of CSI protection certification, a cyber, social, identity and personal protection designation for real estate agents and their brokers. Follow Robert Siciliano on Twitter.
Source: www.inman.com